


Marine

by Bentclaw



Series: Sea Life [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, small oblivious children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5981473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bentclaw/pseuds/Bentclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rin is nearby, Haru feels the water calling to him more strongly than ever. It's exciting and scary, and he isn't sure how to balance himself out again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "But Wolf," I asked myself, "does this fandom really need more fic about elementary school Rin and Haru?"
> 
> "Don't be silly," I replied. "Of course it does." 
> 
> I love animal motifs. Like, really love them. They're my favorite thing. If a series doesn't already have them, I usually make them up anyway. So how could I possibly leave the ones in Free alone? This is planned as part one of a series which may or may not materialize, in which I play around with them. In theory it will get more coherent as it goes along, and may even eventually sprout a plot one day.

Haru pulled himself out of the pool after finishing his last lap for the day and stalked into the locker room without a backward glance. Usually he tried to extend his time in the water as much as possible, but he couldn’t relax as long as Rin was in the pool. He had only been in the swim club with them for a short time, but Haru was already about to lose patience with him.

Rin was distracting, in the worst kind of way. No matter where he was in the pool, Haru was aware of him. He couldn’t shake the feeling of Rin swimming nearby, no matter how many laps he did. Even if Rin was all the way on the other end of the pool Haru had a nagging awareness of where he was. To say it was troubling would be a huge understatement.

It wasn’t even that Rin pulled him away from feeling the water. If it were that simple, Haru could just hate him and be done with it. No, instead Rin amplified it. Knowing that there was someone else in the pool who could feel the water as much as he could made him want to give up and let it consume him. It left him feeling open and excited and desperate to keep swimming. To just get into the water and never come out again. To live there, the way he’d always secretly suspected he was meant to.

It was a little bit scary. Haru had spent his entire life trying to balance his relationship with water. Most of the time he was very good at being a normal kid who went to school and had sleepovers at Makoto’s and made himself dinner when his parents were out of town. He was only allowed to let go of all that when he was at the pool, where he could dive and hold his breath and navigate without seeing and come up safely again. There and in his dreams, which he couldn’t control anyway so they didn’t count. He’d had the balance down to a fine art, and now Rin was messing him up. He wasn’t supposed to swim because he wanted to, if he let himself swim whenever he wanted he would just never stop swimming, and his mind understood why that would be bad even if his heart didn’t. Most of his life was on land, and he couldn’t just abandon it to swim all the time.

Rin could at least give some indication that he was aware he was causing Haru a problem, but instead he always wanted to be closer to Haru, to swim with Haru more. It was baffling. Haru was sure he wasn’t wrong about Rin, the weird awareness had to go both ways or else Rin wouldn’t pay any attention to him at all. Rin’s internal balance had to be thrown off too, but he acted like he wasn’t even bothered. He never looked completely comfortable on dry land either, but apparently it wasn’t difficult for him to immerse himself entirely in the water and then come back out again afterward.

Haru had always been unsettled by how much he wanted to let go of the land and slip into the water, but Rin wasn’t afraid of wanting things. He wanted to swim a relay with Haru, and to be his friend at school, and Haru wasn’t sure he could handle that. Rin was loud and energetic, while Haru tried to always be quiet and calm. He wasn’t sure why Rin even wanted to be friends in the first place. He’d never done anything interesting, Rin should just ignore him like everyone else.

Predictably, when Rin saw Haru leaving the pool area he climbed out of the water and followed him. “Hey Haru, wait up! No, sorry coach, I’m not running! Hey, wait!”

Haru sighed heavily and leaned against the doorway of the locker room. He normally wouldn’t wait, but he was already trying very hard not to run into the showers and sit under the water until he dissolved, so he didn’t have a lot of energy left over to ignore Rin. He had already agreed to do the relay, couldn’t that be good enough?

“What do you want?” he asked as soon as Rin came close enough that he could make himself heard without shouting. It was supposed to sound annoyed and intimidating, but instead he sounded exhausted.

Rin faltered. “Um, I… it’s not like you to get out of the pool before the rest of us, so I was just… are you okay?”

Haru gave him a glare. “I just don’t feel like swimming any more today. I’m busy.” He turned away and hoped that Rin would pick up on the I don’t want to deal with this, go away.

No such luck. “Too busy for swimming, huh? Must be a first!” Rin grinned and trotted after him into the locker room. He was standing too close, Haru could still feel his presence even with his back turned, and this awareness of Rin could _not_ be allowed to follow him out of the water. It wasn’t normal. Besides, Rin was distracting enough in the pool, Haru didn’t need that on dry land too. It would make school a nightmare. It was like Rin was a radio with the volume up too loud, and Haru was tuned in to him to the exclusion of everything else. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but he had other things he needed to focus on. His only option was to keep his distance. If he was far enough away from Rin, then maybe he could ignore it.

He grabbed his things out of his locker and slammed it shut. Rin paused in the process of pulling off his swim cap, looking surprised.

“Leave me alone,” Haru said, pulling on his shoes without bothering to tie them properly. “I’m tired.”

It came out sounding rougher than he’d intended, but if he stopped to correct himself then the feeling would just get worse. He ignored Rin’s shocked face and left the locker room without even rinsing off. Once he got outside, he ran away from the swim club as fast as he could. He felt something very like panic welling up, and ran much faster than he was used to. He wouldn’t be able to keep that pace up all the way home and he knew it, but all he wanted to do was put as much ground behind him as possible.

* * *

 

Makoto caught up with him later, when he was almost home, and spent the next few minutes of the walk hovering in the way that Haru knew meant he had something to say. Spit it out already he thought, looking away in a steadfast refusal to make eye contact.

Right before they reached Makoto’s house, he finally cleared his throat and said “Do you think you could try to be a little nicer to Rin?” His voice was soft and gentle and sounded exactly like the way he spoke to his younger siblings when they misbehaved. Haru bristled. He didn’t need to be scolded like a little kid.

“I _am_ nice to Rin,” he snapped back. “I agreed to swim the relay, didn’t I? And I talk to him at school.” He realized he was whining, so he stopped talking in favor of kicking a rock across the sidewalk.

Makoto sighed. “I know you see it that way, but Rin doesn’t,” he said. He still sounded irritatingly patient. “You didn’t see him after you left today, he was crushed. It took us ages to calm him down. He thinks you hate him, Haru.”

Haru almost tripped on the stairs in his surprise. How could Rin think that? He grabbed at the handrail to catch his balance and stared at Makoto. “I don’t hate him.”

Makoto smiled and patted his shoulder. “I know you don’t. See you later, Haru.” He turned toward his house and gave Haru a final wave before heading inside.

Haru slowed down after Makoto vanished into his house. He wasn’t really in any rush to get home, and he was a little shaken from their conversation. Makoto had to be wrong, because if Rin thought that Haru hated him he wouldn’t hang around him so much. Nobody would be that much of a masochist. Would they? He frowned. The idea of Rin’s feelings being seriously hurt by something he’d done was making him feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. He thought Rin knew that he didn’t mean any of, it was just their dynamic. Rin pushed him, he responded as much as he could, and then when he was tired he left. It wasn’t his fault Rin had misunderstood.

He remembered how fast Rin had realized he wasn’t feeling right, how Rin gotten himself scolded for running to check on him.

Rin’s smiling face popped into his head, in spite of his best efforts to banish it. He imagined the happy look fading from Rin’s face after he was left alone. Had Rin sought Makoto and Nagisa out, or had they gone to him? Makoto had said that Rin was really upset. Haru snorted. Rin was probably just being overdramatic again. He was ridiculous. They were almost in middle school now, and Rin was too old to be carrying on about every little thing.

The Rin in his head was in tears, turning away from an imaginary Makoto and Nagisa who surrounded him, offering up hugs and soothing words about how Haru didn’t really _mean_ it, he was just _like_ that. Haru paused on his front porch, with his hand on the doorknob. It probably hadn't happened that way. Even Rin wasn't that dramatic. Was he? Haru looked guiltily over his shoulder and considered going back to Makoto’s house and asking him what exactly had happened. But he really was tired, he wanted to get inside, and Rin was gone already. He’d gone home, he would get over it, and then they could go back to normal.

The normal where Makoto thought Haru was mean to Rin, and where he made Rin sad without even realizing. Haru sighed.

Well. If Rin was still upset at school in the morning, he’d do something. Maybe.

He pushed his way into his house, dropped his bag off by the door, and made his way to the bathroom. He had been trying to keep himself away from the water, but he didn’t care anymore. He needed a good long soak to relax. He’d had a long day and he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night if he was distracted by wanting to be in the water.

Haru had turned getting into the bath quickly into a fine art, and it was almost an unconscious process. He was up to his neck in lukewarm water before he’d even fully processed that he was in the bathroom. He hoped he had remembered to shut the front door, but he wasn’t going to track water all over the house to go check.

That was better. He exhaled slowly and let himself float in the water, feeling it lift him up. He would have liked to have some more room to move, but he had left the pool on purpose so he couldn’t complain. His bath was familiar and quiet, and he could stop worrying about everything. Homework, the relay, making up with Rin, all of it could wait. All he had to do was lie still and feel the water, and he was home. He could imagine an ocean floor far beneath him and gentle currents pushing him around as he rested.

Just when he went to duck his head under the water, his ears picked up the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the stairs. He slipped under the surface and started, choking on the water. Someone was in the house! He surfaced with a series of coughs and rubbed the water out of his eyes while his mind caught up. His mother must be home early from work. Now he thought about it, he had seen her shoes by the door. He had just been too far into his own head to think about them at the time.

There was a knock at the door. “Haruka, are you all right in there?”

Haru cleared his throat and tried his best to stop coughing. “Yes!” His voice came out slightly hoarse, and he thumped himself on the chest. Why did his lungs always have to inhale when he was surprised? It was dangerous, with him being in the water so much.

He knew he should be happy that his mother was home, and usually he would have been, but right then it was just one more thing throwing off his routine. His mother never let him sit in the bath for as long as he wanted, so he resigned himself to spending the evening in dry clothes, answering uncomfortable questions about school and swim club. He could hear her moving around in the house, and decided to get out of the tub and avoid making her call him. Mourning the loss of his nice evening, he reluctantly climbed out of the water.

Now he had to worry about Rin again. He’d been able to ignore it in the comforting familiarity of his bathtub, but as soon as he’d gotten out it crept back into his head again. It wasn’t a fight, not really, but it would make swim practice awkward if Rin thought he didn’t want to be there. What could he do? He couldn’t just avoid Rin forever, they were on the same relay team. Avoiding him wasn’t even helping Haru feel less aware of him, it was just making him feel bad on top of it.

It wasn’t until he’d toweled off his hair, thrown on some clothes, and gotten halfway to the living room that the idea struck him. He stuck his head into the kitchen, where his mother was cooking something that definitely wasn’t the mackerel he’d planned on having for dinner.

“Mom? Can I invite a friend to stay over tomorrow?”

His mother made a thoughtful noise without looking up from her cooking. “Doesn’t Makoto usually have to babysit the twins on Friday nights?”

Haru cringed, and then carefully schooled his expression back into a neutral one in case his mother looked over at him. It shouldn’t be possible for Rin to embarrass him without being physically present, but here he was fighting back the urge to bury his head in his hands. “It’s not Makoto,” he answered, trying his best to sound casual.

“Oh?” Apparently he hadn’t succeeded at downplaying it, because his mother turned away from the stove and raised her eyebrow curiously. “Who is it?”

Haru looked to the side and pretended he hadn’t noticed her surprise at the idea of him having a friend who wasn’t Makoto. He could have lots of friends if he wanted to! He just didn’t have time to talk to people at school, when they were supposed to be paying attention to the work.

“He’s just some guy from the swim team,” he muttered. “Rin Matsuoka. He just moved here. We’re in the same class.”

“Well, it’s okay with me as long as he gets permission from his parents,” his mother said. “I’m glad you’re making friends on the team! Will you get some plates out? Dinner’s almost ready.”

Haru nodded, thankful that he’d managed to evade further questioning. He spent the rest of the evening carefully keeping the conversation away from Rin. He had a plan now, he didn’t have to think about it any more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haru invites Rin over, and tries to learn how to understand him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! I actually completely forgot that was this weekend, but when I remembered it seemed like a good time to post. I should maybe have edited this a little more but I'm not feeling very good and I wanted to get this up at a reasonable hour of the day. 
> 
> Here's where I get a little more into the animal motif stuff. It hopefully makes at least a little bit of sense. Timeline-wise, this is before Rin tells anyone about his father or about going to Australia, but I couldn't resist trying to give you guys feels about it anyway. If the ending seems off it's because I kept getting sympathetic drowsiness while writing it and needed to wrap it up as fast as I could.

Rin was standing by the window when Haru got to class the next morning. He was chatting with Yazaki, whose desk was by the window. He didn’t look unhappy at first glance, but when he noticed Haru he frowned slightly and looked down instead of running up to greet him or waving him over the way he normally did. Yazaki noticed his reaction and looked past him to Haru. She gave him a smile and a little wave, but looked uncertain. Haru didn’t need to be a genius to realize that Rin had talked to her about him. They might even have been talking about him when he came in.

That thought alone was almost enough to make him sit down at his desk and pretend nothing out of the ordinary was going on, but he had already told his mother he’d like to have a friend over. He couldn’t back out now, or there would be uncomfortable questions. He took a breath to steel himself, walked over to where Rin was standing, and sat down at the empty desk in front of Yazaki’s.

“Good morning,” he said. It came out very quiet, and much less casual than he’d hoped, but at least he’d said it.

“Hey,” Rin answered. He was looking at Haru warily, and was trying to subtly edge away from him a little bit. “What’s up?”

Haru didn’t answer right away. He slumped down in the desk, trying to figure out how to approach this. It wasn’t a big deal, right? Rin probably got invited to peoples’ houses all the time, there wasn’t anything to be worried about.

Rin kept glancing away and squirming like he wanted to run. “Did you want to talk to Yazaki?” he asked. “I can go…” He pushed away from the wall and started to turn away.

No, Rin couldn’t leave. Haru really would lose his nerve if he did. Before Rin could get more than a step away, Haru reached out and grabbed his sleeve. “Hang on.”

He didn’t have a very good grip on Rin’s arm. Rin could break away and run at any second, and it looked like he was considering it. He was tugging lightly at his arm and leaning away from Haru. They were attracting some attention from the rest of the class by that point, Haru could tell that the people nearest to them were starting to covertly listen in. _They ought to mind their own business_ he thought. This was going to be even harder with an audience, but if he let Rin go now he would run off, and then everything would get worse.

So instead of pulling his hand away and retreating back to his regular desk, he said “Come over to my house after swim practice.”

“What for?” Rin still looked nervous, which was a problem. Haru had hoped that Rin would pick up on the fact that the invitation was meant to double as an apology, but he was acting like he thought Haru was trying to get him alone so he could fight him or something.

Haru sighed. “Because I’m inviting you over,” he stressed, hoping Rin would get it. No luck. “You can have dinner at my house, and stay over if you want.”

Rin’s expression of confusion deepened. Haru felt like letting go of his sleeve and burying his face in his hands. He could feel his face starting to heat up and his first instinct was to look away so nobody would see, but he had to make sure Rin understood his meaning.

“I’m trying to apologize to you,” he said, staring Rin in the eye and speaking quietly to deter eavesdropping classmates.

“Oh!” Rin’s eyes widened, and he stopped trying to pull away. “Oh, that’s okay! It wasn’t really that big of a deal, you know? You don’t, um, you don’t have to invite me over just because you feel like you have to, it’s really okay.” He laughed nervously, scratching at the back of his neck with one hand.

That wasn’t fair at all. Rin couldn’t just change his mind like that. He wanted to spend time with Haru, so there shouldn’t be any problem. Or really, now Haru thought about it, that was what caused the problem in the first place. But Haru was trying to fix it, and Rin wasn’t working with him. He glared at Rin and repeated “Come over after swim practice.”

Rin stopped laughing and stared wide-eyed at him. “If… if you’re sure it’s all right. I’ll have to call my mom and ask her, but… okay.”

“Okay.” Haru gave him a short nod and stood up. Thank goodness that was over with. He picked up his bag and rushed over to his desk, dropping into his chair as their teacher walked in.

Out of the corner of his eye he could have sworn he saw Yazaki giving Rin a thumbs-up while the class scrambled to take their seats.

* * *

Rin had trouble keeping up with Haru during the run home after practice. When they had arrived at the swim club, the first thing he’d done was dash up to the front desk and ask if he could use the phone to call his mother. After asking her for permission to stay over at Haru’s, he had arranged for her to drop off an overnight bag for him. It was waiting for him in the locker room after practice, and he was struggling a little under the extra weight.

“You could have just borrowed some of my stuff,” Haru told him.

“It’s okay!” Rin said, sounding very out of breath. “I like my stuff!” He shifted the bag on his shoulder, and narrowly avoided tripping over his own feet.

Haru took pity on him and slowed his pace a little bit. Makoto raised an eyebrow at him as he passed them. Haru glared back, daring him to say something about it. Sure, maybe he had said that he wouldn’t wait for people who couldn’t keep up, but this was different. Rin wouldn’t know where to go if he left him behind. Makoto just smiled, and didn’t say a word until they passed his house.

“Have a fun time!” He called cheerfully after them, waving them off.

Haru needed to have a talk with him sometime about shouting down the street. He didn’t need the whole neighborhood to know about it when he got home. It was already weird enough having Rin here, he kept pointing things out and loudly admiring them. To Haru, who saw this same street every single day, it seemed entirely superfluous. Sure, some of the houses were nice, but did Rin have to talk about it so loudly? The people inside might hear him.

Of course, Rin’s open admiration of everything around Haru also extended to his house. When Haru opened the door and waved him inside, Rin said “Wow, you live _here?_ ” in a tone of absolute delight.

It was just a house. Haru looked around the entryway to see if he could spot anything that might be deserving of such excitement and came up blank. It wasn’t like it was a particularly big house, or a fancy one. He kicked off his shoes and set his bag down next to them, then glanced around again, hoping to somehow get some clue of what to do next. When Makoto came over they usually just did homework or played video games, but he didn’t know what kind of games Rin liked and their homework didn’t need to be done until Monday.

“You can look around if you want,” he offered. If Rin liked his house that much he might enjoy seeing the rest of it, and maybe he would find something he wanted to do.

Rin took him up on the offer at once. He circled the house a few times, with Haru trailing along behind him. It was still weird to see Rin in his house, but it didn’t feel like an invasion of his personal space the way he had been worried it would. Rin was more contained here than he was at swim practice or school. He was still loud and excitable, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Instead of feeling bowled over by Rin’s attention, Haru found himself pleased by it. Rin liked his house, and thought all his things were cool and interesting. Following behind him, Haru could see it that way too.

Luckily it turned out that Rin liked the games Haru had, or at least was pretending to like them. The game console had been the first thing he’d zeroed in on after finishing his tour and briefly introducing himself to Haru’s mother. Haru wasn’t sure if Rin actually knew what he was doing or not, but he navigated his character through the maps with enthusiasm, if not with skill. While they played he talked about their classmates, about their times at swim practice, about his sister, and Haru hoped he was keeping up well enough to meet Rin’s expectations. Carrying on a conversation was not his best talent, and Rin had to spend a lot of time prompting him to speak. It did get easier as the afternoon went on though, and Haru had to admit that it was sort of fun to learn so much about Rin. He had been trying to figure Rin out since they met, and he couldn’t overlook the possibility that Rin might say something that would help him.

When his mother called them for dinner, Haru was actually disappointed at the interruption.

* * *

When they settled down in Haru’s room for the night, Rin kept talking. He spoke in a whisper, so as not to wake Haru’s mother. Haru was worn out by that point and couldn’t contribute much more than the occasional hum to let Rin know he was still listening. He could hear Rin’s voice floating out of the darkness, but when he lifted his head to look at him all he could see were shadows. It was an odd feeling to be hearing something he couldn’t see. He closed his eyes and tried to pinpoint Rin’s exact location in his room, curled up with a pillow on the spare futon. It was like echolocation, if he really pretended. He relaxed into his pillows. His awareness of Rin’s presence had somehow become soothing instead of stressful.

“Hey, Haru,” Rin eventually whispered, rousing Haru from his light doze. “Are you asleep?”

“No,” Haru said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. _Not anymore_.

“I can’t sleep,” Rin said. “Come on, let’s do something.”

“Like what?” Haru whispered back. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Rin fell silent to think. If Haru listened carefully, he could hear him breathing. “Let’s go to the beach,” he answered, just as Haru was starting to think he’d fallen asleep after all.

Haru sat up in bed, all traces of sleep gone. “What, you mean sneak out?” He covered his mouth, realizing he’d forgotten to keep his voice down. It sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet house and they both froze, listening to make sure Haru’s mother hadn’t woken up.

When half a minute had passed with no noises from the other room, Rin sat up too. “Well it sounds bad when you say it like that…”

“I’m not supposed to go down to the beach at night,” Haru told him.

“That’s so you won’t get in trouble if you’re by yourself,” Rin said. “We’d be together, so it’d be okay!”

Haru turned that over in his head. His room did feel a little stuffy, it might be nice to go outside. And he’d never seen the ocean in the middle of the night before. Still, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

“It’s too cold to swim,” he said.

Rin snorted. “So we won’t swim, then. It’s still nice to be by the ocean even if all you can do is look at it. I can’t believe you don’t want to go.”

Haru pushed back his blanket and swung his feet out of bed. Even without seeing Rin’s face he recognized a challenge, and he really did want to be near the water. “I didn’t say I don’t want to go.”

Rin was up off the floor at once, rummaging around for his bag. They pulled their day clothes back on over their pajamas for extra warmth, and Rin produced a flashlight from one of the pockets of his bag.

Haru knew that his mother wasn’t in the habit of looking in on him at night, but he decided to leave her a note just in case. He carefully printed _went for a walk, be back soon_ on a piece of scrap paper and propped it up on his pillow. Then he grabbed his coat and followed Rin. They crept downstairs slowly and carefully. Rin was excited, and kept having to pause to muffle fits of nervous laughter. Each time Rin stopped or the house creaked or Haru’s foot bumped against something, he would freeze and hold his breath, listening for signs of life in his mother’s room. He didn’t breathe properly until they were outside, shutting the front door quietly behind them.

He was very rarely out this late. The neighborhood was dead silent, and Haru felt especially aware of things like the slight breeze hitting his face and the way their shadows moved as they walked under street lamps. There was something energizing about it, and Haru felt like shouting at the top of his lungs, just because he could. He didn’t, of course, because he didn’t want to wake up any of the neighbors, and also because he had to watch to make sure Rin didn’t do anything reckless. Rin was talking a mile a minute, looking around excitedly and practically skipping. Haru had seen Rin this excited before, but it was always about things that didn’t seem very important to him. This time he thought he could understand where Rin was coming from.

When they got to the beach, Rin broke into a run. He was slow on the sand but made his way down to the waterline, and stood there staring out at the ocean. Haru hurried after him, looking up and down the beach as far as he could see in the darkness. It looked larger at night. When the sun was out, you could tell that it was a small beach. The sand was warm and the water always seemed inviting and calm. In the dark, it was difficult to tell how far the sand stretched. The water was black, except for the tops of the waves where the moon illuminated them. There was a little bit of light from the half-full moon, but not enough to see clearly. It was difficult to tell where the water ended and the horizon started. It felt like the whole sea was out there instead of a calm bay. The water looked deep and rough and full of unexplored places.

The sand was damp under his feet when Haru reached Rin. “Move back a little,” he said, tugging on Rin’s arm. “Our shoes will get wet, and my mom will notice in the morning.”

“Huh?” Rin jerked a little, as if he was coming out of a trance. “Oh, yeah. Okay.” He turned and walked back a few paces, eventually settling down to sit in the sand a few feet above the waterline.

Haru sat down next to him, and they sat quietly for a long time, listening to the sound of the waves coming in and watching the subtle movement of the moonbeams on the water.

“You’re thinking of going in, aren’t you?” Rin asked abruptly. Haru turned to look at him, surprised. He wasn’t that obvious, was he? Rin didn’t look like he was making fun of him though.

He nodded slowly. He hadn’t realized it, but yes, he had been thinking about going in. Or more accurately, he had been thinking about living in the bay. Diving to the bottom to look for food during the day, drifting near the surface to sleep at night, watching the people on the shore… he sighed and pulled his legs in, wrapping his arms around his knees.

“Me too,” Rin admitted quietly. “It would be nice to just get in and go, you know? If I were a shark I could swim for miles without having to come up for air. I bet I’d see all sorts of great places. Not that I don’t like it here, you know?”

Haru nodded again, but he didn’t think he agreed. Iwatobi was nice. If he were a dolphin, he would stay near the mouth of the bay. This was home, after all. Rin felt a differently, though. Rin wanted to go everywhere. As usual, he couldn’t be content with what he had.

“Where would you go?” He asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Rin looked out at the horizon again. “Anywhere, I guess. I wouldn’t have to stop for anything. And if the weather got bad or I ran into anything dangerous, I could just dive really far down and avoid it.”

“You wouldn’t make a very good shark,” Haru told him. He wasn’t sure why he said that, except that Rin was looking very solemn all of a sudden. The indignant expression he got on his face after Haru spoke was an improvement. “You’re too friendly. You wouldn’t be able to attack things.”

“If I were a shark I could do whatever I wanted!” Rin shot back. “Besides, what about you? Everyone says you’re like a dolphin, but you’re always going off on your own.”

Haru snorted. “What, you mean like now?” He _wished_ he could go off on his own and be content that way, his life would be easier if he didn’t get drawn in by people. Other people were hard, but when he was alone for too long he always got caught up in his own world and started to forget important things.

Rin held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “You’re right, that wasn’t fair of me. I’m sorry. I’m glad you wanted to hang out with me, even though I’m annoying.” He smiled at Haru, then picked up a pebble from the sand and started idly throwing it to himself.

Haru shook his head. He wanted to respond to that, maybe tell Rin he wasn’t annoying, even though he was. He was, but that was okay. He hoped Rin knew that, but couldn’t quite find the words to explain. Instead, he found himself staring at the pebble’s motion as Rin tossed it around. He watched it for a minute or two, then decided it wasn’t worth the effort to stay upright and lay down in the sand. Unlike Rin, he had actually been tired when they left. It was chilly out, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable, and the sand was soft. He closed his eyes, telling himself it would help him hear the waves better.

He was just noticing that the sound of the water was starting to fade out, and that he couldn’t seem to locate himself anymore but wasn’t particularly bothered by it, when Rin poked him in the arm. Haru opened his eyes with a jolt and glared. He’d been comfortable.

“Don’t fall asleep!” Rin teased. “I’ll leave you out here if you do.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Haru mumbled. He sat up and clumsily brushed the sand out of his hair.

“Sure you weren’t,” Rin said. He stood up and offered Haru a hand. “We can go back if you want, sorry for dragging you out here.”

Haru took his hand and stood up on irritatingly wobbly legs. He really hadn’t been asleep.

He didn’t actually want to go back, but he didn’t want to stay on the beach either. The water was calling him very strongly, the way it always did when Rin was nearby. It wasn’t like he could actually go into it though, so maybe it would be better if he went home. He turned away from the ocean, frowning as he checked the sand to make sure he hadn’t dropped anything. Rin waited patiently, hands in his pockets, smiling gently. When they started back across the beach, Rin put his hand out to steady Haru every time he wobbled on the sand. Haru kept brushing him off and grumbling, but he was too tired to put up more than a token protest.

By the time they got back to his house, Haru couldn’t deny anymore that he was falling asleep. He kept stumbling, and keeping his eyes open was impossible. Rin had held his arm in a firm grip the whole way back, ostensibly because he was cold, but Haru knew it was probably to make sure he didn’t topple over. He had just enough energy left to be annoyed about it. It was childish of him, needing someone to carry him back home. It certainly wasn’t good behavior to display around a guest.

Rin didn’t seem to mind, though. He kept smiling even when Haru dragged his feet on the stairs, and guided him into his room without turning the light on.

“Is it okay if I sleep on the bed with you?” Rin asked. “It might help me sleep, I promise not to kick you or anything.”

Haru yawned and nodded, pulling his coat and day clothes off and crawling under the covers. Rin had stuck so close to him on the walk back that the question wasn’t surprising.

Rin climbed up next to him, being careful not to jostle him too much. He was warm and Haru’s first instinct was to move closer to him. Up close, Rin’s presence was a stable constant rather than a prickly distraction. He hadn’t taken off his coat, and there was still sand on it from the beach. It was collecting between them in the low point of the mattress, and Haru made an irritated noise while brushing it away. It he woke up with sand in his eyes he was going to blame Rin for it. He inched closer all the same, instinctively reaching out for the nearest source of warmth after having been out in the chilled night air.

Rin whispered a good night, and Haru was asleep before he could think to reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was originally a planned third chapter to this, but upon a second look at my notes I think it works better as a oneshot epilogue. I cannot make any promises about finishing it because I am a very slow writer and get distracted easily, but I will do my best because I want to do more with this idea.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really like this chapter, I had a hard time getting into the swing of Haru's POV. He's my favorite character, but there's a reason I usually write for Rin. I will post the next chapter (which is both longer and better, I promise) Saturday or Sunday.


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